Boombox

We interrupt the regularly scheduled programming on Red Pill to give you…well, yet another shiny new toy.

This time it’s Boombox – a site for mp3 mixes we built using the Opentape server.

It’s no secret that I’m a massive fan of the mix tape. Anyone who grew up in the 80′s has made many a mix tape in their lifetime. But now, music distribution has evolved. MP3′s are now the most popular medium amongst my circle of musical friends and we’re storing our libraries on iPods/iTunes. Sure, I was making CD mixes and sending them around on a fairly regularly basis. But more efficient mechanisms for sharing mixes and new tunes from your library has been sorely needed for a few years. There have been many attempts from services like Mog, Live365, and Last.FM (all great services for reasons other than building mixes, by the way), but none have hit the mix builiding sweet spot. That’s why Muxtape was such a major discovery. It made mix building and sharing extremely simple. It had only two flaws. First, it was missing a bulk uploading tool. Second, it was such an obvious target for shutdown.

Enter Opentape. Clearly influenced by Muxtape’s interface and design, its self-hosted nature also successfully adds an FTP element into the song uploading process. Bulk uploading? Check. Time will tell if deployments of Opentape can escape the wrath of music industry takedown.

Anyway…the first Shiny New Toy mix on Boombox, is a simple one. Side 1, track 1. It’s my response to Rob Gordon’s Top 5 Side 1′s, Track 1′s list in High Fidelity.